The 1920s Government, Politics, and Law: Topics in the News

ISOLATIONISM AND INFIGHTING

During 1918 and 1919, Democratic president Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) stressed the importance of international peace. He emphasized a no-guilt peace settlement, and he urged the development of a League of Nations to resolve disagreements without violence. These principles, outlined in Wilson's Fourteen Points, a list of postwar goals, failed to gain U.S. support. By war's end, Congress had a Republican majority which defeated the president's aims for international relations. Despite Wilson's involvement in the negotiations and his firm support of the Treaty of Versailles, which formally ended World War I, the United States never signed the treaty and did not become a member of the newly established League of Nations.

As the new decade began, the Republican Party moved into the executive branch of government with the nation's enthusiastic election of Republican Warren G. Harding (1865–1923) to the presidency in 1920. The changing character of government was a reflection of the public's move backwards into isolationism and provincialism (a limited or unsophisticated outlook). After several years of participating in international warfare, the public pulled back from the world, as an injured animal retreats into a corner to lick its wounds. Additionally, Americans retreated from one another, with a growing distrust for people different from themselves.

The country became divided along sharp political, religious, and ethnic lines. One of the greatest wedges driving Americans apart was the fear of communists, a hysteria which became known as the Red Scare. On January 2, 1920, U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer (1872–1936) instructed federal agents to raid pool halls, restaurants, and private homes in thirty-three cities. More than four thousand people were arrested as alleged communists and radicals. Casting aside civil liberties, Palmer detained many suspects without proper warrants. The Palmer raids resulted in the imprisonment and deportation of many foreign-born residents and instilled in Americans a national hysteria. Many feared that a "red menace," or communist enemy, was living among them.

At the time, there were three separate communist parties within the United States. All were blamed for a downturn in the economy, when in fact the industrial and business problems at the start of the 1920s could be traced to the shift from a wartime to a peacetime economy. As organized labor pushed for wage increases and improved working conditions, it was the communists whom Americans blamed for labor disputes. Additionally, during 1919 bombs were sent to thirty-six U.S. government officials; these actions also were blamed on the communists and radical groups. By the end of 1920, however, the violence had subsided, and Americans began realizing that the "red scare" was exaggerated.

Nevertheless, the fear of "different" people continued to pervade public opinion throughout the decade. Immigrants were perceived by many Anglo-Saxon Protestant Americans in two ways: as competitors in the postwar slumping job market who would work for low wages, and as radical outsiders bent on destroying the American way of life. The image of the United States as a safe harbor for foreigners had been destroyed. In 1921, legislation began to limit the steady flow of foreigners into the United States. That year, an emergency immigration restriction act held the number of immigrants to 355,000 per year. Each foreign country was assigned a quota: 3 percent of the number of people from that country already in the United States according to the 1910 census.

As the economy recovered, American businesses needed immigrants as cheap labor. Still, the public's negative view towards foreigners did not change. Racial theorists began to spout ideas that white Anglo-Saxon Americans were superior to the mix of immigrants of various races and ethnicities whose characteristics and cultures were stirred into one great American "melting pot." Many influential Anglo-Saxon Americans listened to these theories and pressured Congress to pass further legislation to restrict immigration. In 1924, Congress passed the National Origins Act which further limited the number of Europeans entering the United States to 150,000 per year. The quota for each nation was lowered to 2 percent of foreign-born persons from that country who already lived in the United States at the time of the 1890 census. That change especially affected the number of southern and eastern Europeans who could enter, since many from countries in those regions had not arrived in the United States until after 1890. In an additional attempt to exclude those who were different, the federal government enacted a law during the 1920s to keep out all Asian immigrants.

The public's fear of foreigners provided fertile ground for the revival of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), a white supremacist organization. Part of the motivation for the resurgence of the Klan lay with widespread beliefs of Anglo-Saxon racial superiority; part lay with the popularity of the epic film The Birth of a Nation (1915), which glorified the Klan's activities. The new KKK did not limit its violence and intimidations to African Americans in the South. Klan members also targeted Catholics, Jews, and immigrants. The U.S. House of Representatives investigated Klan activities, but very little came of the inquiry, due to the supremacist group's sweeping power. During the early 1920s Klan support of political candidates influenced many elections. Later in the decade, however, the authority of the Klan diminished because the majority of Americans did not share the KKK's hatreds. Furthermore, publicized murders by Klan members eventually were recognized as gruesome and repulsive crimes.

PROHIBITION

The Volstead Act, passed in 1919, codified the newly ratified Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which banned the production, transportation, and sale of intoxicating liquor in the United States. Intoxicating liquor meant any drink containing at least 0.5 percent alcohol, thus placing beer among the forbidden beverages. Existing supplies of intoxicants could be used only for medicinal and religious purposes.

William Allen White: Enemy of the Klan

William Allen White (1868–1944), a leading spokesperson for liberal Republicanism in the Midwest, was the owner and editor of the Emporia Gazette in Kansas. Although he ran a small town newspaper, he had a large readership because his editorials were syndicated throughout the nation. White condemned the activities of the Ku Klux Klan in a public letter to Herbert Bayard Swope (1882–1958), editor of the New York World, on May 18, 1921.

White wrote, "American Institutions, our courts, our legislatures…are strong enough to keep the justice and goodwill in the community. If these are not, then the thing to do is to change these institutions…but legally. For a self-constituted body of immoral idiots who would substitute the Ku Klux Klan for the process of law to try to better conditions is a most un-American outrage, which every good citizen should resent.… The picayunish cowardice of a man who would substitute Klan rule and mob law for what our American fathers have died to establish should prove what a cheap outfit the Klan is."

Prohibition split the nation into two groups: the mainly Anglo-Saxon Protestant middle class who were pleased to have a "dry" nation and the ethnic and immigrant working class who were anti-Prohibitionists. Many Americans who did not agree with the Volstead Act supported illegal

"speakeasies," which were concealed bars run by members of organized crime syndicates. Many of the gangsters who ran the speakeasies became rich from selling "bootleg gin." One of the most notorious of the "bootleggers" was Al Capone (1899–1947) who provided illegal liquor to the Chicago area. Organized crime was rampant throughout the nation, and the government could not supply enough police to shut down the illegal liquor trade. Many gangsters and innocent bystanders were maimed or killed in street shootouts among rival gangs.

During the decade, Governor Alfred E. Smith (1873–1944) of New York was one of many outspoken opponents of Prohibition. Smith argued that Prohibition was sparking the spread of organized crime, was an unnatural lifestyle for many Americans, and was difficult to enforce. Anti-Prohibitionists attempted to convince the government that taxes on legally manufactured intoxicating liquors would boost the economy. Eventually, the Volstead Act was repealed by the enactment of the Twenty-First Amendment, and Prohibition ended in 1933.

GOVERNMENT AND BUSINESS

As the decade began, the U.S. economy was in a short-lived recession. Inflation (the continuing rise in the general price of goods and services because of an overabundance of available money) was under control, but the unemployment rate stayed between 3 and 4 percent. From 1922 through 1927, the economy grew at a healthy rate of 7 percent per year. Industry and manufacturing increased as demand and consumption grew.

Republican presidents Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover took the stance that government should not intervene in the business of big business. In fact, in 1925 Coolidge declared, "The business of America is business. The man who builds a factory builds a temple. The man who works there worships there." Material success became a measuring stick for a person's leadership ability. Being poor implied that a person had not taken advantage of opportunities. Therefore, business leaders were viewed as respected national leaders. It was this philosophy that drove Secretary of the Treasury Andrew W. Mellon (1855–1937) to keep out of the way of big business. Mellon discouraged government spending, and he cut taxes. He felt that removing the tax burden from the wealthy would spark industrialists to expand manufacturing, and eventually their gains would trickle down to provide more jobs to the labor class.

The U.S. Commerce Department, which Hoover headed before becoming president, emphasized a balance of unregulated business interests with humanitarian values. Hoover relied on corporate leadership to promote efficiency and self-regulation. Meanwhile, unions were losing members and power. In 1920 unions boasted 5.1 million members; by 1929 they had only 3.6 million. Without government regulation, businesses were not obligated to give benefits to their employees. Throughoutthe 1920s, owners offered laborers "welfare capitalism," a paternalistic system of services that pacified many employees. However, these benefits were only voluntary packages which often were reduced or rescinded by owners when employees tried to use them.

GOVERNMENT AND AGRICULTURE

Farmers suffered during the 1920s. Production was high, but so were production costs. Many farmers incurred huge debts. Surpluses abounded, and the price of commodities (products of agriculture) remained low. Meanwhile, the costs of land, machinery, equipment, labor, and transportation all rose. These imbalances destroyed farmers' profits.

The supply of farm products outstripped the demand. That problem was not easily detectable at the time, however. The agricultural community instead pinned its failure to make profits on insufficient credit, high interest rates, inadequate tariffs (duties on imported or exported goods), and a decline in international trade. As the nation's population poured out of the countryside into the cities, rural farming areas lost the attention of government. Even so, some congressional leaders tried to deal with farm problems during the decade. During President Harding's administration, a "farm-bloc" was organized to exert pressure to legislate the farmers out of their predicament. This caucus (a group that unites to promote a cause) advocated extending generous credit to farmers, combined with high tariffs and cooperative marketing. While these proposals treated the symptoms, they did not solve the long-term problems of the farmers.

Then George N. Peek (1873–1943) of the Moline Plow Company suggested a plan to achieve economic equality for agriculture by adjusting farm prices to match the more prosperous farm period of 1909 to 1914. Congress adapted Peek's idea into a federal price support system for agricultural products. The McNary-Haugen Bill was argued for three years, and when it finally reached President Coolidge's desk in 1927, he vetoed it. When President Hoover came into office, however, he signed into law subsequent farm-related legislation. The Agricultural Marketing Act followed Hoover's guidelines for self-help, as opposed to federally legislated assistance for farmers. The bill did not bring effective results, however, and farmers faced many more years of unresolved problems.

NATIONAL POLITICS: THE ELECTIONS OF THE 1920S

Throughout the decade, the Republican Party controlled the federal government. The three U.S. presidents to follow Democrat Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) into office were all Republicans. Both houses of Congress had gained Republican majorities by the end of the 1910s. During the 1920s, some Congressional seats would return to Democrats, but Republicans maintained the majority vote.

During the final months of his second term, incumbent President Wilson was embittered by the lack of Congressional support for his post-World War I international peace plan. In his frustration, he delayed announcing his candidacy for a third term. His hesitation made other potential Democratic candidates reluctant to come forward, not wanting to challenge a seated president. Having suffered two strokes, Wilson needed to face the fact of his failing health. Still, he did not step down.

By the time the Democratic National Convention began in San Francisco on June 28, 1920, Wilson still had not decided whether to seek a third term. Among other Democrats who were running were Secretary of the Treasury and Wilson's son-in-law William McAdoo, Governor James M. Cox of Ohio, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York, and Senator Carter Glass of Virginia. After several ballots, Cox finally gained the nomination. The Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945), was the vice-presidential nominee.

The Republicans chose Warren G. Harding (1865–1923) and Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) as their presidential and vice-presidential nominees. Rather than wage a campaign on the issues, Harding chose to run on the basis of his image. Campaigning from his front porch in Marion, Ohio, he presented himself as a down-home man wanting peace and "normalcy" for the United States. A former newspaper publisher, Harding enlisted the support of 90 percent of newspaper editors across the country. Coolidge was a quiet man who followed Harding's lead, campaigning for patriotism and common sense in government. The Republican ticket won a landslide victory, capturing 404 electoral votes to just 127 for the Democrats.

Harding's ineffectiveness during his first two years in office sparked an outpouring of Democratic voters during the interim elections of 1922. Democrats retained all their congressional seats and gained an additional seventy that had been held by Republicans. Still, the Republicans made up the majority.

Harding's sudden death in August 1923 had placed Calvin Coolidge in the Oval Office. He ran for reelection in 1924 as the Republican incumbent. Charles G. Dawes (1865–1951), a conservative who opposed organized labor, ran as Coolidge's vice president.

Uplifted by the results of the congressional elections of 1922, Democrats hoped for a presidential victory in 1924. Unfortunately, their most promising candidate, William McAdoo (1863–1941), was involved in the Teapot Dome scandal and connected to the Ku Klux Klan, a group which attracted many rural dwellers but was shunned by urbanites. McAdoo's opponent for the Democratic nomination was Alfred E. Smith (1873–1944). The two fought for the nomination but neither could get the necessary twothirds majority. Finally, a compromise candidate was chosen on the 103rd ballot: John W. Davis (1873–1955), a lawyer and former U.S. ambassador to Great Britain. Davis ran on "The American Creed" platform, which minimized government intervention in business and was similar to Coolidge's position. Davis' vice-presidential running mate was Governor Charles W. Bryan (1867–1945) of Nebraska.

A third party candidate, Senator Robert La Follette (1855–1925), left the Republican Party to run on behalf of the Progressive Party. That party's campaign platform opposed monopolies and called for public ownership of water power, the nationalization of railroads, increased taxes of the wealthy, and an end to child labor. La Follette distanced himself from the Communist Party and denounced the Klan. Davis, too, denounced the Klan. Only Coolidge refused to take a stance on the KKK. Coolidge returned to office with 382 electoral votes; Davis won 136 electoral votes from the solid Democratic South. La Follette carried only Wisconsin but received 17 percent of the popular vote nationwide.

Women Succeed in Joining the Electorate

The Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution was passed in June 1919 and ratified by the states by August 1920. It reads, "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of sex."

At first, many women were hesitant to exercise their right to vote. Of those who did, the majority timidly echoed the political leanings of their husbands or other family males. To bring females to the polls, the League of Women Voters, founded in 1920, disseminated educational pamphlets about upcoming elections and encouraged women to actively participate in politics. After their initial reluctance, women enthusiastically began to participate in the electoral process.

Congressional elections brought the Democrats seven new seats. Coolidge experienced some embarrassment when his fellow Republican, Senator William Butler (1861–1937) of Coolidge's home state of Massachusetts, and the only candidate with whom he personally campaigned, was defeated. Despite the Democratic gains, however, Republicans still held the majority of votes in Congress.

The economy was booming, yet Calvin Coolidge refused to run for reelection in 1928. Endorsing the current president's policies, Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) of California stepped forward to seek the presidency. He was nominated on the first ballot at the Republican Party's national convention. Charles Curtis (1860–1936) of Kansas was his vice-presidential running mate.

The divided Democratic Party realized it would be necessary to win the electoral votes of New York, so the Democrats chose New York's Governor Alfred E. Smith as their candidate. Because Smith was an Irish Catholic running for a job that previously had been won only by Protestants, he was controversial. Additionally, Smith was a liberal who opposed Prohibition. Many in the party hoped that conservative Democrat McAdoo would come forward to oppose Smith, but he did not do so. Smith ran with vice-presidential nominee Joseph T. Robinson (1872–1937) of Arkansas.

Smith urged voters to reopen immigration and repeal Prohibition. Although he stressed the separation of church and state, many Americans saw his Catholicism as troublesome. Some viewed him as a radical with leanings toward New York's corrupt Tammany Hall political machine, a loyalty he did not deny. Americans even criticized his wife for lacking social graces and talking too much!

In the end, Republican Hoover won the election with an impressive 444 electoral votes. Smith garnered the support of only eight states with a total of eighty-seven electoral votes. Despite the disappointing outcome, Smith actually won 41 percent of the popular vote and helped advance Democratic Party policies in a number of cities.

THE TEAPOT DOME SCANDAL

Although several scandals burdened the presidency of Warren Harding, the most highly publicized was the Teapot Dome controversy. The situation involved three U.S. Naval oil reserve stations that President Wilson had set up for government use only. Two of them were in California, and one was in Teapot Dome, Wyoming. In 1921, Secretary of the Interior and anticonservationist Albert B. Fall (1861–1944), arranged with Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby (1870–1929) to have the rights to the naval oil reserves transferred to the Department of the Interior. Fall then quietly granted drilling rights at one California station to Edward L. Doheny (1856–1935), owner of the Pan-American Petroleum and Transport Company. Fall licensed the rights to drill at Elk Hills, California and at Teapot Dome to Harry Sinclair (1876–1956), owner of the Mammoth Oil Company.

After several conservationists heard about Fall's covert maneuvers, they asked assistance from Senator La Follette to launch a congressional investigation. Private hearings were followed by public hearings. Eventually, Fall resigned his position and then Harding died, diminishing the urgency of the investigation. However, the scandal did not remain dormant for long. When Fall began spending large sums of money, his friend Doheny admitted he was the source of "loans" to the former interior secretary. National attention was placed on the scandal, and several top Republicans resigned from their respective offices.

State trials proved that Fall had accepted bribes. He became the first cabinet member to serve a prison sentence for wrongdoing, but Sinclair and Doheny were acquitted. In 1924, Coolidge established the Federal Oil Conservation Board (FOCB) to promote the preservation of government oil supplies, and Hoover later announced the "complete conservation of government oil in this administration."

Reapportionment

By 1920, the U.S. census showed that for the first time, more Americans were living in cities than in rural areas. Because the population had shifted dramatically to urban centers, a need arose for reapportionment (a reconfiguration of congressional districts). Congress failed to pass a vote to adjust seats, particularly due to the strenuous opposition of rural-based congressmen who feared they would lose their positions. Not until 1929 would Congress pass a bill authorizing the president to reapportion districts if Congress failed to do so.

THE HALL-MILLS MURDER CASE

The decade was sprinkled with well-publicized crimes. Among the most notorious was the Hall-Mills murder case. On September 16, 1922, the mutilated bodies of a man and woman were spotted underneath a crabapple tree near New Brunswick, New Jersey. The man was Reverend Edward Wheeler Hall (1881–1922), a married man and rector of a fashionable Episcopalian church in New Brunswick. The woman was Eleanor Mills (c. 1888–1922), a married woman and member of the church choir. Their love letters were scattered around the murder site. Hall's widow and her brothers were heirs to the multimillion dollar Johnson and Johnson pharmaceutical company fortune. At first, the investigation was bungled and no charges were brought. Then in 1926, the case was reopened during a circulation war between two New York City tabloid newspapers. A pig farmer known as "The Pig Woman" claimed to have seen a couple struggling with a heavyset woman, like Mrs. Hall, and three men, possibly Mrs. Hall's two brothers and a cousin, on the night of the murder. In the end, all the defendants were acquitted. They sued one of the tabloids for $3 million in damages and were awarded an out-of-court settlement.

BUCK V. BELL: EUGENICS AND PUBLIC POLICY

During the decade, a number of social commentators decried babies being born to people of inferior genes. Their reasoning was based on the science of eugenics (the improvement of the hereditary quality of the human race through selective breeding practices). People who believe in this science discount any role environment might play in determining a person's characteristics and behavior.

"Feeble-minded" women of child-bearing age often were placed in mental institutions or involuntarily sterilized. In 1924, Carrie Buck (1906–1983), a poverty-stricken white teenager subsequently deemed mentally retarded, was described as "morally delinquent" after becoming pregnant as a result of being raped. In January 1925 she bore a daughter who was adopted and subsequently developed into a healthy and mentally competent woman. After the birth Carrie was scheduled for sterilization surgery. On the basis of derogatory remarks made about Buck's parents, a court case followed. Buck's lawyer claimed her impending sterilization was the result of social prejudice. The case eventually went before the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled on May 2, 1927, that Buck's forced sterilization was legal and necessary for the general public good. After the decision, twenty states instituted eugenics laws. Four decades later, the decision was reversed.

THE LEOPOLD AND LOEB CASE

On May 21, 1924, Nathan Leopold (1904–1971) and Richard Loeb (1905–1936), two academically brilliant teenagers from wealthy Jewish families in Chicago, lured fourteen-year-old Robert Franks (1910–1924), into their automobile. After bludgeoning him to death, they half-buried his body in a railway culvert (a transverse drain) at a public park. They then called Frank's parents to ask for $10,000 in ransom for the return of their son. The murderers imagined they had carried out the "perfect crime."

Unfortunately for them, Loeb had left his prescription sunglasses near the body. Renowned attorney Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) defended the teens, who had confessed but appeared arrogant during the trial. Believing that neither Leopold nor Loeb had any sense of right or wrong, Darrow set out to prove that his clients were indeed guilty, but insane. He did so in order to save the two men from the death penalty. Darrow's approach worked, and Leopold and Loeb were given life sentences. In 1936, Loeb was killed during a prison brawl. In 1958, Leopold was paroled. He married in 1961 and died ten years later.

The Schwimmer Case: No Citizenship for Conscientious Objectors

In August 1921 Professor Rosika Schwimmer (1877–1948), a Hungarian Jew, entered the United States to take a teaching position at the University of Chicago. After five years as a resident alien, she applied for U.S. citizenship. On the application form, Schwimmer, a noted pacifist, answered no to a question about being willing to bear arms during any future national emergency. Because of this response, she was denied citizenship by the U.S. Department of State. Schwimmer sued the federal government, and on April 12, 1929, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against her. Justice Pierce Butler (1866–1939) spoke for the majority by declaring, "The influence of conscience objectors against the use of military force in defense…of our Government is apt to be more detrimental than the mere refusal to bear arms."

RACE RELATIONS

In February 1925, Ossian Sweet (1895–1960), an African American physician, moved with his family to a white neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan. Neighbors protested the presence of a black family by vandalizing the Sweet home. Sweet surrounded his family with black bodyguards and announced that he owned an arsenal of weapons. On September 9, a riot ensued with whites storming the front porch of the Sweet residence and smashing several windows. The Sweets fired guns into the mob; one rioter was killed. Sweet claimed that he had given warning. The Sweets and their bodyguards were charged with murder and armed assault. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) raised $75,000 for the defense expenses. Arthur Garfield Hays (1881–1954) and Clarence Darrow were the defense lawyers, and the jury was racially mixed. By pointing out conflicts in onlookers' accounts, Darrow discredited several witnesses. Meanwhile, the prosecution was unable to prove the murder was premeditated. No convictions were made. The Sweet trial was an exception to the many "Jim Crow" convictions of the period.

In 1925, a Chinese American student was denied entrance to a white high school in Mississippi on the basis of her race. She was instructed to apply to the inferior quality "colored" high school in the next county. Her family's lawyer argued that the girl did not belong in the "colored" school, stating that "Colored describes only one race, and that is the Negro." In late 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that "colored" referred to "all members of the brown, yellow, red, and black races."

THE SACCO AND VANZETTI CASE

On April 15, 1920, the paymaster of a factory in Massachusetts was robbed of more than $15,000 and killed, along with another victim. The armed robbers later were described by witnesses as "two short, dark, foreign types." The next month, state police picked up two Italian immigrants in a raid: Nicola Sacco (1891–1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (1888–1927). Both were anarchists and union organizers. Police found a gun in Sacco's possession, and ballistic experts later claimed that bullets fired from the gun matched those found in the victims. At the subsequent trial, several witnesses identified the immigrants as the criminals, but most of the evidence was circumstantial. Sacco and Vanzetti were found guilty and sentenced to death by electrocution.

Their lawyer managed to delay their death for several years, during which time many American liberals and intellectuals protested the arrest and conviction of the anarchists as a "political prosecution" indicative of anti-immigrant, anti-establishment feelings. Eventually the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against a stay of execution, and in 1927 Sacco and Vanzetti were electrocuted. In 1977, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis (1933–) issued a proclamation essentially absolving Sacco and Vanzetti of the crime.